


Fresh Ink

by Fractiouskat



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bly's Dumptruck Ass, Clone tattoos, Inspired by Fanart, No Beta We Die Like Clones, Vaguely implied Blyla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25437598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fractiouskat/pseuds/Fractiouskat
Summary: Tattoos were a bit of a hobby in the GAR.(A fanart inspired piece)
Relationships: CC-5052 | Bly & Aayla Secura, CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura
Comments: 14
Kudos: 266





	Fresh Ink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatFunkyOpossum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatFunkyOpossum/gifts).



> It started as a goofy drabble brought to you by ThatFunkyOpossum's absolutely brilliant art of Bly's Dumptruck Ass. Then... it got out of control. I have no beta. I have no regrets. 
> 
> https://thatfunkyopossum.tumblr.com/post/623583968740163585/which-of-you-idiots-took-my-blacks-the-people

Tattoos were a bit of a hobby in the GAR. 

If you were in a hurry and didn’t mind a decent risk of blowout from sketchy ink and shitty equipment, every ship had a few resident needlejockeys (though he had to admit, the 501st had some true talent on hand- if you had a hard-on for nothing but bland-ass grey or dark blue). If you wanted lopsided cogs and military slang, you could go to any number of ink shops in the lower levels, most of which would take clones without prejudice. But if you wanted art? For art, you went to Terno. Most CT’s couldn’t begin to afford his price tag. Luckily, Bly had a bit of a patron in Commander Fox and his endless corporate pocketbooks- the perks of a batchmate with similar taste in ink. 

So while his men rushed off to 79’s and any number of illicit hidey-holes in the lower levels of Coruscant, Bly had changed into discreet, loose fitting civvies in Fox’s office, picked up a set of Coruscant Guard undercover passes, slipped his pistol into a less-military-looking leatheris holster on his hip, and was making his way to the near edge of the commercial sector. The taxi had dropped him off a few blocks away, leaving him with his thoughts for a bit of a walk. The privacy was practically ambrosial. 

~~

“Well look who the tooka dragged in,” drawled the familiar female voice as he ducked in the door of the spartan-but-chic little tattoo shop. He took a quick survey of the lobby- empty, secure- and pushed his hood back. 

“Leena.” He quirked a half-smile at her, rustling his hands at his sides under his poncho. Without his blacks, anything he wore felt loose and airy, and it made him fidgety. 

The skinny Rodian at the front desk beamed at him, her giant eyes creasing at the corners. “Oh he’s gonna be happy to see you. Hey Terno!” 

A loud thud sounded from down the hallway beside the desk, its entry obscured by a loudly patterned curtain. “Whaaat!” 

“Your favorite canvas is here.” 

“Oh hells!” More thumps, a clamor of boots on hard floors, and the curtain pushed aside. “Bly, you motherless bastard, good to see you’re not dead yet.” 

“Too busy to die,” Bly grinned, clasping a forearm with the older man’s in a soldier’s greeting. “And you’ve still got work to do.” 

Terno flashed perfect white teeth in a wicked smile- too perfect, Bly knew, because he’d lost most of them in a skirmish thirty years ago. The retired senate commando stood an inch taller than him and still carried himself like a soldier, though his regulation high-and-tight had grown out into a stark white undercut that he kept slicked back, and his clean shaven face now sported a flawlessly manicured beard. “Truth. Glad to see you planetside. It’s been a while.” 

“They keep us occupied.” 

“So I’ve heard. Well, come on back. Let’s see where we left off.” 

“You can hang your jacket up over there,” called Leena, and Bly paused to obediently pull his poncho off and hang it up with care. Bly shot the Rodian a polite smile as he passed through the curtain after Terno- she twiddled her fingers back at him and watched him go with a smug tilt of her antennae. 

“You know she just does that so she can stare at your ass,” muttered Terno, and Bly almost stumbled. The artist chuckled under his breath and opened the door to his studio. “And now I get the honor. You know the drill. Get comfy, I’ll go grab the gold from the back.” 

“Actually, ah, I wanted to talk about that.” He grabbed his shirt at the nape with one hand and yanked it off over his head, turning to examine his back in the wall-sized mirror in the small, brightly lit room. The flowing gold patterns caught the light as his muscles bunched and tightened with the movement- he turned an arm over to follow the design down his bicep. As much as he enjoyed his ink, he didn’t often have a good opportunity to properly admire it. “What about an accent color?” 

“Accent color? Who put that idea in your head?” 

Bly shrugged to no one and kicked off his boots before stepping out of the bottom half of his civvies. He folded them in a quick movement and tossed them onto a chair in the corner with his discarded shirt, leaving him in just his black undershorts. “Thought it might look good.” 

“You know the rules. Artist picks the work, clone shuts his dick holster, Fox pays the bill.” Terno walked back in with a tray of supplies and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing black and grey and blue swirls of well-aged military ink. “Have you scarred up my hard work since I saw you last time? Anything I need to fix?” 

“Nothing on the ink. Just-“ he lifted an arm to show a wide, ugly patch of fresh pink scarring across his ribs. “Missed it.” 

He whistled under his breath. “Hell of a burn. At least I won’t have to touch up. Good job.” 

Bly huffed a laugh. “I’ll send your complements to the droid.” 

Terno stepped a careful lap around him, examining the flow of the design, fingers prodding here and there and painting invisible lines on the tan planes of Bly’s body. The back of his shoulders glistened with golden patterns, a cape of geometric designs on either side of his spine that draped across the top of his delts. Empty shapes outlined his lower back, dropping to a peak just above the cleft of his ass and cascading in a braid down his hips to his calves, swirling around his knees and shins. His chest was less technical- open outlines dropped in intricate paths down his pecs, outlining and echoing a set of scars on the right side. 

The artist clapped his hands and rubbed them together, nodding. “How long are you on leave?” 

“Two weeks at least, could extend to three.” 

“Fan-kriffing-tastic. How much work are you expecting to do in the next week? Paperwork, drills?” 

“Nothing out of the ordinary. We took some losses, the men need to breathe and logistics needs to get their shit together.” 

“Right, then. We’re going to finish up your backpiece. I want to take this down your arms. Maybe onto your hands. Start filling in your chest a bit, if you can take it.” 

“Go until your hands fall off, I’ve got nothing but time.” 

“Good man. All right, lay back, let’s start with your front so you can sit up for your back.” He turned his back to Bly and started setting up his workstation. After a second, he paused to glance over his shoulder at him. “What new color were you thinking? Not for this time. Next time.” 

Bly didn’t reply for a moment. When he looked up and made eye contact, it was with a softness Terno had never seen from the battle-hardened commander. 

“Blue.” 

~~ 

Their leave had come somewhat unexpectedly, which had thrown off his timing- what had looked like a few weeks of time to get the 327th's affairs in order was crammed into two solid days of frantic wakefulness. It took a lot of paperwork to get them planetside, with an entire campaign's worth of reports they'd been putting off suddenly demanding to be finished before docking. He'd discreetly snuck some stims at the 36 hour mark (how pathetic for a CC to be popping stims for desk work, he had muttered to himself), Deviss had made fun of him and called him Fox, and General Secura had kept him from putting a jittery fist through his company commander's sinuses. The three of them managed to get everything together and filed before they broke atmo, and the relief of a clear desk had made the whole mind-numbing experience grudgingly worth it. He hadn't taken so much as a five minute desk-nap before passing responsibility off to the ground team and bolting off to Terno's.

It had been a bad two months, to say the least.

To be fair, though, he tended to do this every time they had leave scheduled on Coruscant, and the routine tended to be similar- bust ass, get worked on, sleep for days. He knew why- he subjected himself to the artist's ministrations was because he didn't want to forget, and sleep put a numbing veil of time between himself and the reasons he was doing it in the first place. His time on the table wasn't for the sake of vanity or decoration- he was a pragmatic clone, not one to flaunt himself or his emotions. The minuscule number of non-clones who'd seen his tattoos were always shocked at the extent of them. His men weren't surprised, though. They understood exactly why he had them.

His body was an epitaph.

The idea had come to him early on in the war. He'd stumbled upon the Liberty's resident artist etching a fallen vod's number onto the chest of one of his men, and Bly had stood outside the door for a long moment listening to the trooper recounting his memories. "Everything you told me is written here," the artist had said at the end. The words had stuck with Bly.

For troopers, numbers were a common theme. Names just as much. Maybe a symbol to match the name. But for a commander, with his CT's lives pouring through his hands like water, it just wasn't possible to memorialize them in the same way. There were too many to burn into his skin the way they were burned into his mind.

So he went to Terno. The man wasn't a vod, but he was a soldier, and he knew and respected the purpose of their sessions. This was a ceremony of cursed alchemy- Bly spoke his troopers' last moments into the ether and let Terno spin them into golden threads across his body. He talked, Terno worked. Sometimes it was a sprint- sometimes it was a marathon. But regardless, his men were indelibly inked onto his skin- blood turned to beauty, death turned to glowing patterns of light.

~~

That being said, karking hells did this hurt. 

They'd gone well into the night for this session- he had a lot to get off his chest, and Terno had a lot to put on it. By the time he made it back to his quarters, Bly was crashing from his endorphin high and practically toe-dragging from exhaustion. He fumbled with the key code like a drunk before making it inside. He managed to pull off his civvies (with only his first two fingers on each hand- the last two were raw with fresh ink) and lower himself carefully down to his bed, still sticky with bacta gel across his entire torso. He tried laying down- not a good plan. The bacta kept it from hurting unless something touched him, but there wasn't a way to keep the tender skin off of the coarseness of his bedding without stabbing flare-ups of pain. He tried sitting up against the wall- not working either. He cussed up a storm and gingerly tried to get comfortable.

He chased sleep for hours. Just when his senses would fizzle into silence and he'd start to dream, he'd unconsciously roll over and snap awake from some fucking part of him burning at the movement. He growled under his breath after the thirtieth fuckdamn time and sat up, the room spinning around him. This was not working. Sharp with frustration, he kicked his blankets off the bed and followed them to the floor. He curled up beside his bunk, his legs half bent underneath him and his head pillowed awkwardly on one arm stretched across the mattress. He tugged one blanket up from the floor to halfway cover himself. That... worked. Surprisingly. He let out a shuddering huff of relief and fell instantly, deeply asleep.

Until, that is, there was a loud bang from the hallway followed by a raucous crowd of laughter. Bly shot awake.

Someone. Was. Going. To. Die.

"I swear to EVERY CONCEIVABLE GOD," he roared, surging to his feet in a tangle of blankets. He stormed the door, snatching his pistol from the nightstand. He punched the door controls and felt his hand shriek in pain. It only sent his exhaustion-fueled rage into terminal velocity as he stormed into the bright lights of the corridor. "IF YOU LOUSY TRASH-BATCHED FUCKS DON'T SHUT YOUR FACES AND GET OUT OF THIS HALLWAY, I WILL DECOMMISSION YOU MYSELF."

The mixed bag of drunken pilots and troopers froze in horror. One let out a shrill 'oh SHIT' and about-faced at a run. The rest were locked up at the sight of their commander, locked and loaded and naked as the day he was decanted, snarling at them down the hallway like a rabid nexu. The blanket over his shoulder covered nothing of consequence, and fell away even further as he pointed at the exit with a snap of his arm. "GET. OUT."

The whole group scrambled into action at the command, legs and arms flailing everywhere.

"Sorry sir!"

"Oh fuck we're sorry!"

"Get out of my WAY, bro!"

"Move your ass!"

"WE'RE SORRY!"

"JUST RUN!"

And then there was silence. Blissful, blissful fucking silence. Bly stormed back into his quarters and shut the door behind him. 

Now for some fucking SLEEP.


End file.
